Book 2
159
There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things to come, Dean Aldrich reckons up three examples of this gift of prophecy in several of these Essens out of Josephus himself, viz. in the History of the War, B. I. ch. 3. sect. 5, Judas foretold the death of Antigonus at Strato's Tower; B. II. ch. 7. sect. 3, Simon foretold that Archelaus should reign but nine or ten years; and Antiq. B. XV. ch. 10. sect. 4, 5, Menuhem foretold that Herod should be king, and should reign tyrannically, and that for more than twenty or even thirty years. All which came to pass accordingly. by reading the holy books, and using several sorts of purifications, and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of the prophets; and it is but seldom that they miss in their predictions.
